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Dear and scholarly SR, I think you've done a great philosophical work by turning a short truth into a long problem. Not that there's anything wrong with that! --- I guess that's what philosophers "do." But it's out of my league.

I would like to point out that one can receive Holy Communion in good faith without this sort of hyper-think. Little children can receive. Downs Syndrome people and others with mental disability, can receive. I think that for one who has attained the age of reason, a simple "Amen" to the words "This is My Body" is sufficient.

And furthermore, the Catholic Church recognizes the validity of the Eucharist from the non-Latin Catholic churches which never historically batted things back and forth in a Aristotelian-Scholastic intellectual milieu, and don't use the terms associated with that brand of ontology.

The Catholic Church recognizes, too, the validity of the Eucharist as practiced by our separated brethren, the Orthodox, and I think such Apostolic churches as the Armenians (which are not even exactly Orthodox: they are non-Chalcedonian) although they, like the other non-Latins, do not advert to Thomistic terminology like "transubstantiation."

There are some people on both sides of the "Real Presence" question who relish this level of dispute, but not me. To my feeble brain, it's like Algebra II: I can use the terms and pass the test, but I can't really grasp what I'm doing. I am not (ahem) "gifted" at that level of abstraction.

(Come to think of it, 45+ years later, Algebra II could still probably give me an anxiety attack.)

One point I can make: please drop the phrase "literal" body in the context of Eucharist. The "Real Presence" does not mean that the consecrated Eucharist has physiological functions (e.g. respiration, digestion, excretion, etc.) which I guess would be the meaning of a "literal" living body.

(Although: a "literal" glorified, resurrected Body? Are our bodies going to have physiological function? Jesus did eat fish! But did He metabolize it? But anyway...)

That's why it's always a safe bet to use Jesus' words like "real" and "true."

Dear and scholarly SR, I think you've done a great philosophical work by turning a short truth into a long problem.

LOL! My dad used to say, "What's the difference between a scientist and a philosopher? Well, a scientist knows more and more about less and less until he knows everything about nothing. Whereas a philosopher knows less and less about more and more until he knows nothing about everything." :)

So no, I do not purport to be a philosopher. Indeed, my treatment of the doctrine of substances has been ridiculously brief and inadequate. But we do have a problem. The doctrine does present the dilemma I raised concerning cannibalism. That is the question presented, as they say, and that's what I was trying to address, that while nothing in the NT narrative requires a conclusion of cannibalism, transubstantiation misses the mark, and presents as dogma a position that cannot be anything but cannibalism, albeit of a very sophisticated nature.

So while it may be that others can come at this without having to deal with its implications, I cannot unsee what I have seen. Transubstantiation, to my current understanding, does imply cannibalism, however convoluted. To get past that, it would be necessary for Rome to completely dispense with the Aristotelian-Aquinan formula, and I do not expect Rome to do that at my request. It is an impassible boundary.

Rather, I am bound to the simplicity of Scripture. I agree with what you said about "literal." Half my reason for even bringing that up was to show how useless it is as a means of understanding. I felt compelled to mention it only because it is so often raised by your fellow RCs, presumably as a means of establishing contrast with the Protestant/evangelical understanding of metaphor. It's kind of a straw man. The right way to interpret a passage is to understand it the way the writer meant it. Sometimes that's totally concrete. Very often there is much more there, including metaphor. That's why, in terms of methodology, just plain old honest use of language is probably the single most important thing on can do to get the right meaning. It would certainly help our Supreme Court do a better job with the Constitution.

As for Jesus, He did use the word "alethos" ("true") in John 6, discussing how His body and blood are true food. But he used the same word here:

Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed ("truly");
(John 8:31)

So the use of the word "true" does not confine one to physical or even quasi-physical things. Being a true disciple of Christ is a spiritual thing. God desires that we worship Him is spirit and in truth. God is a spirit and nothing is more true than God. You see my problem here. "True" by itself does not tell us whether Jesus means physical, Aristotelian substantive, spiritual, or anything else in that ontological area. In fact, I'd say inserting ontology here completely misses the point. He is saying what He said in verse 35. What is the telos (purpose) of food? To satisfy hunger. What is the telos of drink? To satisfy thirst. Come to Jesus in faith, and you will have the truest food and truest drink you have ever consumed, because for the first time in your life, you will know permanent satisfaction. How? Believe on Him. So he's not addressing the ontology, but the teleology.

Anyway, thank you for your kind response.

Peace,

SR